


Band-Aids and the Milky Way

by LizzzBeth



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Brother-Sister Relationships, Brotherly Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Still Alive, Father-Son Relationship, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad, Kay?, Not Canon Compliant, Panic Attacks, Post-Endgame, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, and morgan is such a sweetie she is my child and I would die for her, but like, but they are spoilers that we are ignoring because it was stupid, it's a bitch, kay., morgan and peter are siblings you can't change my mind, no beta reading we die like men, peter would be such a good big brother you can't change my mind about that either, pretty major spoilers, we're just gonna go ahead and ignore endgame canon and substitute our own
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 13:26:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18739954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizzzBeth/pseuds/LizzzBeth
Summary: *ENDGAME SPOILERS*Peter has the beginnings of a pretty nasty panic attack one night in his room at the Starks' lake house. The war has ended but the effects still linger. He spent 5 years in limbo. He fought in two major battles back to back. Death has brushed his life too close for comfort way too many times and Peter just... can't breathe.Maybe his new baby sister can help him through this one, huh?





	Band-Aids and the Milky Way

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all, can we agree that endgame was ROUGH and thoroughly wrecked us all??  
> This is kinda a fix it fic but mostly a f*ck it fic. I'm not fixing shit at this point I'm just straight up ignoring canon.  
> TBH I'm writing this so I don't have to sift through the heart-breaking canon-compliant fics. Ya girl gotta rest. And that new Spider-man: FFH trailer?? Extra wrecked.

Thanos was dead. The snap was reversed. Peter was back and so was the rest of the dusted.

So... what now?

It all seemed so sudden to Peter. One moment he was holding on to Mr. Stark, begging not to die. He had been so afraid- so in pain. Then there was nothing. Not even darkness. It was a distinct lack of anything. There was no thought. No memory. No movement. Nothing.

Then suddenly, Peter opened his eyes and breathed in the foreign ozone-tinted air of Titan. It had felt like blink. One moment Mr. Stark was next to him and the next moment he was alone with what could only be described as a few moronic space pirates and not to mention a freaking wizard.

They went through one of the wizard’s sparkly portal thingies and BAM they were thrown into the fight of their lives. Peter had never been so exhilarated and terrified in his life. This wasn't like his regular patrols in Queens and it was such a bigger scale than their fight with Thanos on Titan. Back then they were 7 on 1. Now they were evenly matched in the thousands. Well... not quite evenly matched. They won.

But almost at what cost?

Peter rolled over in his new bed, chest growing tight. The sounds of the city were far away because he himself was far from the city. After the snap, Aunt May had left their apartment in Queens. She had moved into a small place after that. A place that couldn't quite fit another person let alone an active teenage boy. May was now looking for an apartment like the one they had, but it was difficult. After the snap was reversed, there was a bit of a housing crisis. Everyone who came was either scrambling for a place to live or was temporarily homeless.

Thankfully, Peter didn't have to worry about the latter. After hearing about the situation, Mr. Stark had offered a spare bedroom at his and Pepper's lake house for Peter to stay in.

"Even after May woo's a landlord over with her incredible good looks, it's still yours, kid." Mr Stark had said. Peter had to suppress a groan at Mr. Stark's comment on his aunt.

For Peter, this was all run-of-the-mill. To him, they had talked not a week before. But there was no denying that time had passed after the first snap. May, Mr. Stark, and even Pepper had all developed a bit of gray in their hair. Hell, Mr. Stark and Pepper even had a little girl. They had introduced Peter to Morgan and vice versa ASAP.

"This is your big brother. Mentor. Possibly exploited babysitter," Mr. Stark said to Morgan, smiling as he presented Peter to her.

"That's Spiderman?" Morgan asked, astounded, staying rather close to her mother's leg at first.

"Yup. Don't squish him." Tony snarked.

Peter had instantly fallen in love with her. A fraternal protectiveness that he didn't even know he possessed rose up in him the second Morgan hugged his neck, ignoring her dad’s warning about squishing.

Mr. Stark was doing fairly well, considering the fact that his right arm had to be amputated after the snap.

That… that was the scariest part of the whole ordeal.

Mr. Stark looked dead on the battlefield. Hell, he had died at one point, only brought back by the talent of a certain Dr. Helen Cho and maybe some mumbo jumbo voodoo from Dr. Strange. It still didn't erase the fact that Peter had watched him die...

Peter kicked off his sheets, turning onto his back in order to let himself get some air. It seemed to have grown thick around him, solidifying in his lungs. His ribs couldn’t expand enough to absorb the oxygen in the small bedroom.

Small for Mr. Stark, that is. The compound was toast and, with it, so was Peter’s larger old room given to him for the weekends he stayed there. Peter didn’t mind in the least what size his bedroom was. He missed his Queen’s bedroom horribly, though. He had just left for a field trip and it seemed like a day later his home was gone, his Aunt had more lines in her face, half of his class at Midtown had ‘graduated’ in a liberal sense of the word (since half of the teachers had been dusted, too).

But now, even with all of his bedroom windows open and the curtains lifting lazily into the room on a light breeze, the room seemed way too small for how fast his mind was running and how hard his heart was pumping.

Peter sat quickly, thinking the jolt might force some air into his body. It worked for a moment, but then he was back at square one. Logically, he knew he was breathing. He knew his lungs were working at full capacity. His throat wasn’t closing up. There was no shortage of oxygen blowing into his room off the lake.

He slung his legs around to plant themselves on the cool hardwood floor. It grounded him for a while longer. He was alive, not dust on the wind. Mr. Stark was somewhere snoring in this house, laying in a bed that was sitting on the same hardwood floor that Peter’s toes were digging into. Morgan was in the room next door. Pepper was with Mr. Stark. She was taking care of him.

Mr. Stark was alive.

Even though he almost…

Peter was up and moving before he could even register what he was doing.

It was fine, he reasoned. He just had to check that everything was okay. Then he could breathe. Then he could sleep.

He checked on Morgan. Her door opened soundlessly, her bedroom illuminated by the scooby-doo night light in the corner. Peter had poked fun at Mr. Stark about that.

“For some reason, I would have expected a model arc reactor.” Morgan laughed at Peter’s joke.

“For that, you get a visit from stumpy,” Mr. Stark retorted, chasing Peter and Morgan around the house with his bandaged arm that ended just before his elbow.

Peter suppressed the shudder that ran through him at the memory of Mr. Stark’s burned flesh and crumpled hand. Thanks to Dr. Cho, his face was saved from major scarring because it received the lesser impact from the Infinity Stones’ damaging energy. But down his neck and along his shoulder, the scars got worse and worse until they disappeared under the bandages that were scheduled to be removed permanently the next week.

Peter made sure that little Morgan was sleeping soundly, little chest rising and falling with each steady sleep-filled breath. He closed the door softly behind him, disappointed at the fact that his breath was still labored and now felt sour in his chest.

Literally. Sour. It felt like he inhaled the powder from a packet of airheads and now his lungs were curling up inside of him. 

He closed his eyes hard, curling inward and grasping at his chest. The wood of the door was cool against Peter’s forehead as he rested against it. The shakes and tremors snaking down his arms to his hands didn’t make him feel any better. Now he couldn’t breathe _and_ he couldn’t stay still.

Gathering himself, he stood straight up and moved silently down the hallway, past Tony and Pepper’s room because he knew Mr. Stark needed his rest. Even though he desperately wanted to, he wouldn’t bother him. That would be selfish on Peter's part, he reasoned.

The stairs squeaked too loudly for Peter’s liking as he made his way downstairs, and the back door squeaked even louder. Peter paused, heart thumping in the dark night as he strained his ears to hear if Mr. Stark had woken up.

The faint snore from upstairs relaxed him, and Peter took special care not to make any extra noise as he moved out to the back porch and plopped down on the back steps overlooking the lake.

It was a beautiful night. The moon wasn’t that bright so the stars shown brilliantly. The Milky Way stretched overhead like a bandaid over the newly healed universe.

Peter’s breath came a bit easier as he stared at the stars. Now that he knew for certain that life away from Earth not only existed but, thanks to Tony’s reverse-snap, flourished, Peter was astonished with the night sky.

He was looking at so many lives. Trillions. All people with their own histories and futures. Their own problems and joys. All packed into a tiny prick of light in the night sky, painting the universe with beauty and purpose.

And with the fresh breath in his lungs, Peter cried. It’s not like he could stop the tears or that he even meant for them in the first place. But they ran down his cheeks all the same.

Before the spider bite, he would have found comfort in the fact that, among trillions, any mistakes he might make were relatively meaningless. But if the past month proved anything, it’s that Peter’s life was no longer blissfully meaningless. He was part of something so much bigger. The gift he was given with his powers, his abilities… it was also such a heavy curse. A curse that he and all of the other Avengers bore on their shoulders. 

If it weren’t for Peter, the Gauntlet might not have made it as far across the battlefield as it had. If it weren’t for Captain Marvel, the Avengers’ army would have been overrun long before anyone could have fitted the Gauntlet on their hand. Without Dr. Strange, the Avengers’ army wouldn’t have even made it to the battlefield in the first place. Without Dr. Banner, half of all life would still be in that thick nothingness that Peter swore he could still feel hanging onto his bones. Without Tony Stark, they would have lost, and the entire universe that Peter found himself staring up at now would have been snuffed out like a candle.

Peter understood now that he himself was an undeniably important cog in the machine that saved the universe. And can any machine run properly without all of its moving parts.

Peter supposed that’s the pressure that crushed his chest at night. The pressure that, at times, was worse than the pressing weight of the warehouse on his back from his fight with the Vulture. He was something. He mattered. To some people, it might be comforting thought. But to him, it was scary. He was scared. He was barely 17, he didn’t sign up for this.

With great power comes great responsibility. His Uncle Ben had told him that what seemed like a lifetime ago. And in a way, it had been a lifetime. Peter’s life was so drastically different from what it had been back when he was 14, he might as well be living in a different life.

When Peter felt his chest starting to constrict while panic wrapped its way around him once again, he heard the back door open, startling him out of his spiraling thoughts. He quickly wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

“Didn’t hear you wake up, Mr. Stark,” Peter said without turning around. He didn’t know if Tony would be upset at him coming outside at night without telling anyone or for not waking him.

“Peter?” A small voice said behind him. Peter whipped around to see Morgan standing in front of the door, hair tangled around her head, one leg of her pajama bottoms somehow bunched up around her knee instead of her ankle.

“H-hey,” Peter said, surprised, “You’re not supposed to be up, squirt.”

Morgan looked at him with a face so similar to her father’s. She really was a Stark. “Neither are you, but you’re out,” She retorted. Yup, definitely a Stark.

“Did I wake you?” Peter asked as Morgan walked forward and sat cross-legged next to him. She nodded. He felt a slight sting of guilt.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” She said, “Daddy sometimes opens my door at night and it wakes me up. Mommy says she does too but I never notice her. Maybe boys are just really loud.” Morgan said matter-of-factly. 

Peter chuckled a bit. “Yeah, you’re not wrong.”

“Mommy said going outside at nighttime makes you sick,” Morgan said after a second of silence.

Peter shrugged. “Sometimes it makes me feel better,” he admitted. Right after he said it he hoped he wasn’t undermining Pepper’s teachings. He could only imagine the verbal thrashing he would get if Morgan suddenly got the idea to go outside at night when she was sick because Peter once said it made him ‘feel better’.

“Are you sick?” Morgan said, interest piqued. Peter chose his next words carefully to avoid the aforementioned scenario where Pepper would mount his head above the fireplace.

“No…” He trailed off, thinking. “Just… scared, I guess.”

“Why?” Morgan asked, looking at him. “Did you have a nightmare?”

Peter nodded. He didn’t think he should spill his apparent PTSD to a four and a half year old.

“When I get nightmares, Daddy comes and sits with me,” Morgan said, “So I’ll sit with you.”

Peter smiled, tears starting to run down his face again.

“Thanks, Morgan,” Peter’s voice was strained as he wiped at his face again. “That’s really sweet. Wonder where you get that from,” He joked.

“Mommy.” Morgan said without pause. Peter barked out a laugh before slapping his hand over his mouth, looking back at the door, hoping they weren’t being too loud.

“Your dad is sweet, too,” Peter said, looking back at Morgan.

Morgan’s eyebrows scrunched up like Tony’s usually did. Another resemblance that was so uncanny Peter sometimes thought Tony cloned her in his lab. But then, there were times she was more like Pepper. Her nose was Pepper’s more than Tony's. So was her chin. Although, Peter wasn’t so sure about that last one since he’d never seen Tony without his iconic beard.

“Our daddy.” Morgan said, confused. “You’re my big brother. You said, ‘your dad’. He’s yours, too.” 

Peter didn’t bother wiping his tears away.

“I can share,” Morgan continued, “Even though you were gone for a long time. Daddy doesn’t mind. Even if you live with Aunt May, I can still share. I’m really good at sharing. You can have some of my toys, too. But not my scooby-doo doll. He’s my favorite.”

Peter laughed wetly, putting his arm around Morgan and drawing her into his side. She cuddled right up to him, yawning.

“Thank you,” Peter said genuinely, “I feel much better now, squirt. But I think we should go back to bed.”

Morgan nodded sleepily against his chest. “Yeah. If we don’t, Daddy is gonna sell our toys. I think he’s joking, though.”

Peter stood up after another moment, tears dried, bringing Morgan with him. She held onto his neck as he carried her back inside and up the stairs, a bit quieter this time.

He made sure that Morgan had her scooby-doo doll as he tucked her back into her bed. He made sure her comforter was snug around her shoulders and that her hair was out of her face. He placed a quick peck on her forehead before he stood back up and made his way to the door.

“Love you, bubba,” Morgan said before Peter could close the door all the way. He paused, love surging through his chest, the warmth loosening up the remaining stiffness in his lungs. 

Peter peeked back in the bedroom, Morgan’s big brown doe eyes looking up at him sleepily.

“Love you, too, baby bubba,” He whispered, making Morgan smile as she closed her eyes to drift off to sleep again.

As Peter lay back in his bedroom, he found himself feeling so much better. The pain of what happened, and the horrors of what could’ve happened but didn’t by the grace of God, could take a place on the back burner for now. It would be a long healing process. For the universe. For the world. For Mr. Stark. For Peter himself. But, for tonight, the little things could help him through the rough patches. Or, specifically, the little thing that was snoozing next door.

Afterall, bandaids weren’t just like the big Milky Way over the night sky. Sometimes little sisters were the best bandaids of all.


End file.
